On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Baer and his group met on Mr. Morgan's yacht out in the bay of New York. Mr. Root came down from Washington to represent Roosevelt. Not a newspaperman was permitted out on that yacht. There were no telegrams, no telephones, no messages. How to lose the strike without apparently losing it was what they discussed. But give the victory to the union they would not!
Mr. Root proposed the way out. The President should appoint "an impartial board of inquiry." This method of settling the strike would avoid capitulation to the union, put the operators in the position of yielding to public opinion, make the miners lose public support if they refused to submit their cause to the board.
The next morning, Monday, my friend, Mr. , met Mr. Morgan at 209 Madison Avenue. He returned from that appointment, crying "The strike is settled."
I went back to Wilkesbarre and found that Mr. Mitchell had already been to Washington and had consented to the arbitration of the strike by a board appointed by the president.
"It would never do to refuse the president," he said, when I tried to dissuade him from taking part in the conferences.
"You have a good excuse to give the president," I replied. "Tell him that when you came home from the last conference in the cabinet room, Mr. Baer said he would shoot the miners
